Candid
by Miss Romance-Lover
Summary: Spoilers for Series 2, episode 3: Set in the pub, after the preview clip from episode 4. Rae and Finn finally take the time to talk to each other following their break-up.


**Set during the pub scene in the Episode 4 preview clip, after Archie has left Rae at the table. Finn approaches her and a heart to heart ensues. Any feedback much appreciated.**

Candid

"Shit..." Rae's mumbling the word under her breath as Archie legs it out of the pub and after Lois. She assumes he's going to plead with her to keep his secret, not just until Friday but forever.

It's her fault, Rae thinks as she takes a long sip of her pint. It's down to her that Archie's in this mess and she feels bad because he might be an idiot, but he's still her friend. At the same time, though, maybe this needed to happen?

He can't live like this for the rest of his life, she tells herself. Then in realisation she slams down her glass at the thought.

She's a hypocrite. Archie might well be cocking up his life by insisting on staying in the closet, but she is doing exactly the same thing by burying her own head in the sand over Finn.

Rae lets out a deep sigh, and it must come out louder than she intends because suddenly she's not on her own at the table any more.

"You alright?"

It's Finn.

A minute ago he had been up at the bar; she had seen him messing about with Chop and Izzy. She doesn't know how he can still care whether she's 'alright' or not. But since he's asking...

"Been better."

Finn narrows his eyes at her now, but not in anger. "Why?"

"Because I'm a massive dickhead," she replies without a hint of humour or sarcasm.

He's looking at his feet now, then at the table; anywhere but at her face. Rae waits for him to say something but all that comes her way is a soft chuckle.

"What?"

Finn shakes his head, dismissive again, and then she gets it. They might as well be right back in the middle of _that_ conversation, the one that had taken place in the disabled toilet.

_"Are you gonna stop bein' a dickhead?"_

_"Stop callin' me a dickhead! You're the dickhead!"_

His voice brings her head back to the present. "What's happened then? Just saw Archie run out of here faster than he's ever moved."

Only now does it occur to Rae that this is the first time Finn's spoken to her since that day on the swings, and they're sitting here talking about _Archie_ instead of everything else that's come between them.

"Yeah well," she says. "I've kind of landed him in a mess. Partly his own fault, but I'm still a..."

"...a dickhead, yeah, I think I've got that, Rae. What did you do?"

She screws up her face, remembering how she had dropped the bombshell on Lois - and the look on the poor girl's face afterwards.

"I can't really say without telling you someone else's secret. You'll find out, though." Rae waits for him to stand up and disappear at that, but he doesn't. It gives her an unexpected dose of strength. "Finn?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really sorry."

He's moving closer now, scooting his body over until it's barely an inch away from her.

"For what?"

And she resists the overwhelming urge to look away, makes herself hold Finn's gaze so he has no option to believe in what she says next.

"For being such a dickhead."

He doesn't laugh this time, which is good because she isn't trying to be funny.

"So why were you, then?"

Rae tries to find the words to condense it down into one simple sentence, but it's too hard. She wants to tell him, but if her own head can't make sense of it, how is he supposed to?

"I took the easy way out," she answers eventually. "Option three."

"You've lost me," Finn's brow is crinkling in confusion.

She smiles sadly back at him, taking his words at her own meaning. "I know."

Chop's voice reaches them from the bar, asking if he's "drinking this pint or can I have it?" and Finn shouts that he's welcome to it, then stands up. That's it then, Rae thinks. He's had enough of my mental bullshit and he's leaving.

Only he doesn't disappear like she's expecting.

"Come on."

"Come on what?" she's just downed about half of her drink, having assumed their conversation was over.

Finn stands firm, apparently waiting for her to move. "Let's get out of here."

The question of 'what the hell is happening?' is just on the tip of Rae's tongue, but she stops herself and goes to join him. She took all control out of his hands when she turned up on his doorstep and dumped him, and it's the least she can do now to let him take charge. She could do with the guidance, anyway – the truth is she doesn't know what to do with herself without him.

She can't look at the rest of the gang as they pass them on their way to the door. She's barely spoken to Chop or Izzy since breaking it off with Finn, and she wonders what they think of her; Chop especially.

When they get outside Finn keeps walking, so she follows him without a word until he comes to a stop outside the chippy. "Hungry?" he asks in that same indifferent tone she remembers from their first few days of knowing each other.

Rae shakes her head, and he offers a half smile as he opens the door. "Me neither," he agrees, before leading her inside anyway. They sit down opposite each other, and in the seconds it takes for him to speak again her mind wanders briefly onto what's happening with Archie and Lois. It all seems selfishly unimportant now that she's got the chance to clear up her own personal mess.

"Why did you do it?" Finn asks, his eyes piercing in their gaze. "Why did you change your mind about me? I thought we wanted the same things."

"We do," she replies, aware of how little sense this makes after everything. "I didn't...I didn't change my mind, I just...I got scared."

His eyes soften and she looks away. "And you didn't think you could talk to me about it?"

"It's not that. I just didn't know how to."

"So you thought shutting me out and chucking my jacket at me was the better option?"

Rae winces. It sounds ten times worse when put like that. "I wasn't brave enough for the other option."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Right, so option three was dumping me," he seems to be thinking it over rather than saying it to torment her, but she hates hearing it all the same. "What were the other two?"

Kester's words come back to her – the ones she'd demanded for a short term solution. She thinks she's finally starting to realise that there are no shortcuts to a simple life. "Quit college – that was the second one, and I couldn't do that because my mum would kill me."

"Why would that even come up?" Finn looks genuinely confused. Is he really that clueless?

"Because everyone in that place was staring at us. Well, at _me_."

"What are you on about? 'Course they weren't!"

"Finn." She needs him to understand. "They were. Maybe not as much as I thought at first – I know I can be paranoid. But people were still looking, still laughing and asking each other why someone like you would be interested in someone like _me_."

His face contorts into anger. "Stop saying that! _Stop_ talking about yourself like you're nothing, Rae! What's wrong with someone like _you_? You're clever, you're beautiful, you're strong...you probably know loads more about music than me but I've never held it against you."

She's smirking, despite herself. "_Probably_?"

"That's the only time I'll ever say it, okay?"

There's a smile in his eyes now, and just like that she's smiling too; until Finn's gaze suddenly turns serious again.

"I wish you could see what you look like when you smile. Maybe then you'd start liking yourself," he says, his voice soft.

"It's not that easy," Rae sighs. "Believe me, all that stuff you just said, it meant a lot, but...I can't look at myself and see what you see. I don't know if I'll ever be able to."

Neither one of them speaks in the wake of her reply. Finn gets up and heads over to the counter to buy two cokes. They're the only customers in the place, so he returns less than a minute later, placing one of the cans in front of her.

She can't look at him after her confession, but she picks up the drink and opens it to take a long sip. Her mouth is dry from nervous anxiety.

"Rae?"

She doesn't answer him, just waits.

"You never told me what the other option was."

Kester's voice repeats the words inside her head, and it's only now, as she says them out loud, that she really feels like it might be possible. "It was to stop caring about what other people think."

Rae expects Finn to say something sarcastic, something about how that should be so much easier to do than giving up. That's not what happens, though. He keeps surprising her, and every time he does it chips away at her insecurities until they have that little bit less of an impact.

"I should have seen what was going on," he tells her. "I should've known."

She shakes her head at him. "I should've talked to you."

"You tried, though, didn't you? That day when you dragged me into the toilet." A woman walks in just as Finn finishes the sentence, and she stares at the both of them for a fleeting moment before raising a disapproving eyebrow and passing their table.

"That didn't sound dodgy at all..." Rae mutters, but she's grinning because it doesn't bother her as much as she thought it would. And he's grinning back at her, slipping her a wink so she knows he's understood the implication.

"I guess I just really needed to hear what you saw in me," she says honestly, getting back to the matter at hand. "I wanted you to tell me why you liked me, and saying 'I just do' didn't really help me _get_ it."

Finn studies her carefully. She feels hot under his gaze. "What is it?"

"Do you get it _now_, then?"

"What, why you like me? I think I'm starting to." She mulls over the things he's said today. She doesn't feel clever, or strong, and she _certainly_ doesn't feel beautiful; but somehow she believes that he means it.

"I forgot a few things earlier. I'm still crap with words," he chuckles, and she wants to add that he's actually doing a pretty good job with them for once. "You were my best friend first, Rae, before anything else happened. That's important to me. I always know I can talk to you, like _really_ talk to you. I never had that with anyone else before."

She wishes she could say the same, but the reason he can't be her only confidant is because she's got too many issues, and there are plenty of others that she can relate too with their own stuff going on.

"You're funny too, do you know that? And you say the most random things. I _like_ it. I like that you're not like every other girl in Lincolnshire." Finn tilts his head. "You remember when we got stuck in that disabled toilet? You were banging on about how the whole college would think we'd been..."

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," she cuts him off, embarrassed.

"Right. Well I think it was when you were going on about those little handle things...trying to explain why the hell people would think we'd have sex in there. That's when I knew."

Rae squints at him in confusion. "Knew what?"

"That I love you. I thought, 'God she's a pain in the backside, this girl, but I bloody love her'."

Her breath catches in her throat. It's like something from a scene in one of her books, only it feels even better. "Say that again," she all but demands. There's a chance this could be another one of her fantasies, and she doesn't want to drink it all in until she's sure.

"You're a pain in the..."

"Finn!"

"Ah, you meant the other thing," he's milking it, scratching the back of his head, pretending to look awkward. "I said, I. Love. You."

It's the first time he's said it out loud, not that she deserves it after how she's behaved towards him. But she can't help marvelling at it, replaying the three words over and over. Before she can overthink it, she's saying it back.

"I love you too."

The return of that nose crinkle, the one Finn seems to reserve especially for her, makes Rae's insides warm with delight.

For a moment nothing else happens; they're just looking at each other; processing the shift in their relationship. She can feel the shift in herself, too. Her skin tingles with it, much like the way it did at the end of the summer, only without the denial and repression that used to linger. She knows she isn't fixed – it's not that simple – but this moment right now is a good start.

"Get over here then, girl," Finn says, opening his arms for her. When she moves into his space his hands are holding her face, his lips on hers within seconds.

When they finally pull apart they sit together for ages, Rae having moved into the chair next to him. Her head is on his shoulder, and although she isn't looking at him, she finds herself able to tell him things it had never occurred to her to share with him until today.

She talks about Tix, and the fact that she's still dealing with her death. She tells him he's the only person she's told other than Kester; it's part of what made her so closed off during the few weeks before she finished with Finn, but she won't lay all the blame there. It's now more than obvious to him that how she felt about herself is what drove her to end it.

"I wish you'd told me about her."

"I wish I had, too. Nothing's the same without her, especially when I go back to the hospital for therapy. Poor Danny is even more lost than I was. Liam's a good mate, and he gets what it's like to be different, but sometimes I just want to talk to Tixie."

Finn takes in what she's said about this Liam and files it away. He's seen the guy hanging around Rae at college and couldn't help feeling resentful towards him, but that simmers down somewhat now that he knows why they're connected.

She's changed topics now, and he splutters on his mouthful of coke. "Your mum's _what_?"

"Pregnant," Rae repeats, deadly serious. "Yep. Up the duff, bun in the oven, _with child_...It's mad, isn't it?"

"I thought she said she was 'on the change'?"

"Oh, I _know_. That particular conversation is burned on my brain forever." She looks at Finn and they share the memory together in silence: how an experimental afternoon had quickly turned into a cringe-fest; and they both crack up laughing.

Then, for the first time of her own accord, she stands up and holds out her hand for him to take. Amusement is still dancing in her eyes, and he doesn't hesitate in linking their fingers together as she speaks.

"Fancy coming back to mine for some red cabbage?"


End file.
